Post Match. Pies pip Lions - All comments please.

[Donny]

Collingwood 19.7.121
Brisbane 18.6.114

12 goalkickers: de Goey 5, Thomas 3, Stevo 2, H-E, Varcoe, Cox, Phillips, Howe, Mayne, Moore, Treloar, Pendles 1

Disposals: Sidey 34, Phillips 28, Treloar, Murray 24, Thomas 22, Stevo 21, de Goey, Pendles 20, Varcoe, Crisp 19, Mayne 18, Howe 17, Grundy, Blair 16, Adams, Shaz 14, Appleby, H-E 13,

D/E: Mayne 90%, Phillips 85.7, Howe 82.4, Thomas 82, Cox 90% 10 disposals, so 9 to advantage.

Tackles: Grundy 11, Treloar 7.

AF Points: Phillips 114, de Goey 113, Thomas 103, Sidey 110, Grundy 111, Murray 101, Treloar 100

[Jezza]

From a neutral perspective, everyone would have loved that game. But from a fan perspective it was an incredibly frustrating game in many ways.

Brisbane threw the kitchen sink at us and were determined to play a physical game and they played out of their skins. Interesting that Allen Christiansen noted in his half time interview with Nick Dal Santo that he believed that we would tire out provided the Lions could sustain the pressure which they nearly did in the end.

de Goey was outstanding up forward, and is starting to come of age. Loved Tom Phillips' gut running efforts during the game, and while not the most fashionable player, he's becoming a very handy player for us and he deserves far more recognition from supporters. When the game was under threat in the second quarter, Josh Thomas stood up and kicked three beauties.

The defensive structure didn't function well today. It disintegrated early, and never recovered. Buckley would have been frustrated by the free flowing nature of the game, as we're renowned for being a high stoppage team.

I don't know how much of an impact playing 3 games in 11 days had on us, but I think it's somewhat overstated. I think what unsettled us more than anything is the large amount of changes we made and the fact that the Lions are always a difficult side to play in Queensland. Melbourne struggled to beat them over there in round 2 and Gold Coast were lucky to hold on against them.

Overall, there was a lot to be encouraged about with the way we held our nerve and won the game despite the ordinary nature of the performance. Hopefully with another seven day break upon us, we will be fresh and ready to take on Geelong. With our good recent record against the Cats, I fancy us.

[piedys]

[Jezza]

Shit game, bottom of the ladder team & we just scrape in, could've got a handy % booster & the twats dish that rubbish up.

We didn't play well, but we have to expect lows during the season.

The fact that we managed to remain composed and grind out a win is the most impressive thing. In previous years, we've been on the receiving end of close losses, so it's about time the tables turned.

[Jezza]

Almost an inactive coaching box tonight. No attempt to lock down Zorko.

I was disappointed with our inability to apply the hard tag on Zorko, when other sides have been doing it successfully over the last few weeks.

Zorko caused us a lot of problems, and was clearly the Lions best player today.

[Jezza]

They haven't been shit all season. They've played a few teams where they've been pretty close in a few in the last quarter.

Lions have lost three games by under 10 points this year.

Too much focus is placed on their deplorable performance against Richmond, but apart from that they've been okay despite the lack of victories.

[Jezza]

A relief that we held on. Now strongly in the camp that we can give up the Anzac Day game (winding back the whole round would be even better).

Don't agree. The issue around ANZAC Day and the subsequent breaks only arises once every 5 to 6 years when ANZAC Day falls during the middle of the week.

It's arguably the biggest game of the year outside the Grand Final, and to relinquish it would be silly.

[AN_Inkling]

^^Even when it's a 5 day break it has the potential to derail a season - and has in the past. This year it's clearly taken a heavy toll with injuries and fatigue. Don't like it for football reasons and even less for others.

[AN_Inkling]

Some stats of note:

Our "strong man" Adams, only 2 tackles in what was a very disappointing performance. Didn't really notice him have any positive impact. I'd put him on Selwood next week and be looking for a much better effort, much like de Goey's rebound from an awful game against the Tiges.

With de Goey's 5 goals today we've had three players reach that mark this year. Last year? None I believe. Great that those three aren't really any of the usual suspects either.

[qldmagpie67]

Well just returned the hotel after a lovely dinner.
The discussion of course was the game and how did a winless team go so close to beating a side who had shown far superior form.
The 3 games in 12 days obviously had a influence.
I've read so many of these posts saying so many negatives but maybe a bit of perspective would be in order.
Could our team played better for sure but coming off a hectic 12 days did the coaches think we might not be able to run out the game if we tried to play highly contested footy and that manic pressure we have shown the past 2 games. It obviously takes a toll and maybe we gambled today and tried just to play a bit softer to save some bodies.
Don't under estimate the Lions today. They came with a very smart plan. They took our key defenders out of the play for long periods then isolated players in certain contests. Think when Scharenberg got isolated on the big O a few times. Then they would send there talls further upfield and the smalls would run in behind our players leaving many mismatches in speed. For those who think playing Langdon today would have helped think again he's slow as well (much slower than Appleby) and they would have kicked more goals on Langdon than what Appleby gave up (which was 2 by memory)
They did to us what we've been doing to other teams in not having a set forward line and players constantly changing making it hugely difficult to get the match ups we wanted.
We looked near spent at half time. Our normal runners starting off the HBF like Murray seemed slow today. Trelaor barely busted out of a canter most of the game. Sidey didn't appear to be having a good day until the last term, Pendles was going well until we lost him in the 3rd robbing us of his experience, we couldn't use JDG in the middle as much as we wanted as he was having one of those days near goal and was too important to move. Moore had a very quiet day, Dunn had a dirty day, Appleby showed many signs of being tired but battled very well. Grundy was obviously struggling
Overall the players did well enough to get 4 points and that's what matters.
With the cats next week our attention needs to refocus because we can carve them up if we can get our running game back.
There back line is slow in fact very slow and can be exploited.
Moore has to go back to CHB next week.

For mine and looking at the best fit side available (hoping Pendles gets up) I would go with the following

B. Murray. Dunn. Howe
HB. Crisp. Moore Scharenberg
C. Trelaor. Sidey. Wells
HF. Stephenson. WHE. Thomas
F. Crocker. Cox. JDG
R. Grundy. Adams. Pendles
Int. Phillips. Wills. Varcoe. Faz

Use Wills in rotation on Dangerfield with Pendles
Sidey to go to duckwood in rotation with Thomas
Go with a small/medium mobile forward line to really stretch there slow backs
Moore goes back to play on that young ruck/forward as his mobile and athletic Dunn gets Hawkins if he's not cited and rubbed out
Wells comes in to add the skill and more run.
I reckon the more we can run the more we can open them up

The cats have been going ok but not fantastic. Our best is good enough and we've had a bit of success against them the past couple years.
I wonder if some of the players and coaches were looking forward today to next week.

[think positive]

[Jezza]

^^Even when it's a 5 day break it has the potential to derail a season - and has in the past. This year it's clearly taken a heavy toll with injuries and fatigue. Don't like it for football reasons and even less for others.

With the inclusion of the ANZAC Eve game between Melbourne and Richmond, I think it's complicated things indirectly. The AFL is unwilling to schedule the ANZAC Eve game at the end of the round and schedule the ANZAC Day game at the beginning of the new round despite the game being 18 hours apart.

The AFL should schedule the ANZAC Day game at the start of the round, rather than at the end of the round. For example, in 2012, we played the ANZAC Day game on a Wednesday at the start of round 5 when both sides had a four day break from the round before and subsequent to that, our next game in round 6 was held on Friday night (9 days later) against the Bulldogs. This didn't seem to affect us if my memory is correct.

Whereas, last year and this year, the game was scheduled at the end of the round which has taken some sort of toll on the players, even if I think it's a little bit overstated but we'll have to agree to disagree in this regard.

[Jezza]

Buckley's Press Conference:

Very tight game and a lot of talk about the nature of the game being played at the moment, but it was a very free flowing contest.

"It was. I can't say it was pleasant viewing from our perspective. It was a high scoring shootout ultimately. There were high scores from stoppage and high from turnover. That's the worst we've defended all year, but we were able to show enough pluck to get the job done ultimately. But, there's a lot that we will have a look at that we won't like on tape, but we got the 4 points and the lesson which is a good problem to have".

How's Scott Pendlebury?

"Sprained ankle at this point. Just couldn't get it going. Tried to go down into the rooms clearly and tried to get him up, but we'll know more about that in the next day or two. He's still fairly bullish about it, but just felt like he was impeded enough to not be able to play his role basically. We'll see what happens when the dust settles".

What was the plan with Dayne Zorko?

"It wasn't the plan to have 34 (disposals) and 4 (goals) and 10 tackles mind you. That's a significant game and a really good performance. He's a good player. He looked like he was going to Adam Treloar for the first 4 or 5 minutes, and it looked like there was a plan around getting him accountable first. Whatever our plans were, they didn't work. I think a large part of that was the way we allowed the game to be played, but also the way Brisbane were able to impose their style on the game which makes it a little bit harder to defend opposition's better player which Zorko was".

Did you try to send someone to Zorko and it didn't work?

"Yep, we didn't plan for him to get off the chain like that".

Sounds like you were unhappy with the performance, but you were down with your skipper and three games in 11 days, so you must have been happy to manage to eek it out?

"Yeah our expectations are growing I suppose, and there's nothing wrong with that. You made the point in there that when you get to half time, you've got to earn every win against the opposition. We spoke quite a bit during the week about the fact that Brisbane's best football has been very good, especially their defence has been pretty strong. For us to be able to kick 121 points against them was a good offensive effort, and clearly we had some players there that looked really dangerous forward of the ball. Our back 6 and our team defence didn't hold up as well as we have as it has for the most part of this year, so that was not our brand on full display. But, as I've said, we've got high expectations about what we roll out. We were not all together happy about the way the game was played, but at the same time we did what we needed to do late to be able to win the game on its terms".

Big game from De Goey today

"Yeah, he was quiet last week. He's still learning to have that consistent impact. Sometimes, it's going to be offensive and you're going hit the scoreboard in that role. Sometimes, we will want him in the midfield and we want him to use his strength and his bullocking. So, it was largely positive [today]".

He's [De Goey] a pretty cool head under pressure with the set shot goal and the handball late [to Stephenson]

"He's got real power. He and Stephenson late with their speed, and probably Will Hoskin-Elliott at times as well. That speed forward of the ball was really important for us and gut running as well. The boys have put a fair bit of work in, and we've managed them as well as possibly we can. This is always a danger game, coming off what everyone thinks the second game off the four day break is the worry. This one is clearly one that you mark down and try to look after your players when the majority of them are still recovering. We've dropped this one a couple of times [in the past] and it was good not to do so this time".

Is that a counter to some of the patchy play?

"No. We could definitely improve our diligence and our execution of the way we wanted to play. You have to give credit to the opposition, as they spread us really well and their offence made the ground really big. We were not able to prevent the movement from our forward 50 to theirs. It went something like that 3 and 10 which is a high number, and we've been keeping it down to under 2 and 10 so that's a significant shift. 61 inside 50s and only six tackles so we didn't get enough pressure on the ball either".

http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/2 ... -gutsy-win

[jatsad]

Why does Buckley have to be so obstinate and pig-headed?

Zorko has failed this year with a hard tag on him but Buckley refuses to apply one so Zorko runs wild and has 34 and 4 goals.

What does it take? If it's good enough for Hawthorn with their use of Shiels, then it should be good enough for us. North also use Jacobs that way and they're going along OK. One player with a designated job doesn't break the so called "structure" surely.

Adams would make a perfect tagger and still be able to gain possessions. It may in fact stop him kicking it which would also be a plus.

Rather him that bringinhg back Greenwood. He is too one-dimensional and a worse ball buthcher than Adams.

[inxs88]